Craigslist Creepouts

by elissa
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March 17, 2009
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For the most part, I view Craigslist as a mind-blowingly awesome invention providing every man woman and child with the opportunity to drive 3 hours to pick up a free rusty trampoline, or trade a few hours of shoe-modeling for a 6 gallon drum of apple sauce (see ElGuapo’s guide posted below). But there is a dirty underbelly to Craigslist that a few of us have experienced. It’s all fun and games until someone finds their name listed in the acting credits for a foot fetish video. What’s your creepiest Craigslist moment?

The Craigslist Scammer Who Got His

This story isn’t really creepy, but rather a display of appalling stupidity. When my friend, Timi was recently preyed upon by an obvious scammer, he decided to toy with the guy a little bit. After Timi entertained himself by allowing the scam artist to explain his elaborate scheme of depositing a $3500 check into Timi’s bank, then having Timi mail $2000 of it to some random place in Missouri, Timi instructed his new friend to mail his package to “Rod Blagojevich, 207 State Capitol Bldg., Springfield, IL 62706.” Thinking he had exposed his little trick, Timi was surprised to receive a quick reply citing the Federal Express tracking number for the package that the scammer had actually sent to the state capitol.

Despite the extreme media coverage of Governor Blowdry’s big scandal this year, this Illinois resident must have been too busy designing his foolproof scam plan to notice the name of his very own governor. Hopefully some intern in the mail room got his 15-minutes of fame when he exposed this one.

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The whole point of Craigslist is that there’s no shipping, much less provided transportation. I kept entertaining this guy’s ideas because he was selling something I really wanted at an unusually low price. I guess that should have been my first tip-off.

First he wanted to pick me up at some remote coffee shop, then at a very scary train station in the East Bay. When I asked for his address or phone number, he said he “[didn’t] feel comfortable divulging that information.” Going once, twice, SOLD to the stupid girl who got kidnapped at 11pm at the East Hayward BART station.

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In my favorite Craigslist story of all time, a co-worker of mine shared that she was planning to answer a posting for free lipstick. At first this sounded like a totally innocuous plan. At worst, I figured it might involve a mandatory post-application survey, or a long conversation with a manic marketing major who got roped into some cosmetics pyramid scheme. Then she quickly added, “All you have to do is go shopping for it with this guy. . . and put it on in front of him. No strings attached, he’ll pay for it!” Needless to say, we spent the rest of lunch talking her out of this “great idea.”

Just when I thought paying $30 for department store cosmetics is as emotionally violating as it could get…

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Illinois State Capitol

501 S 2nd St, Springfield, IL 62701

The sixth building to serve as the Illinois State Capitol, the current domed structure was completed in 1888 and soars 361 feet above the ground. Tours of the building cover the history of the state and highlight its beautiful murals, carved ornamentation and the large stained glass dome. The buildin... more »

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The dude in Chicago who scammed my best friend out of 2 months apartment rent

It’s a loooong story, but she paid for an summer apartment up front (because she was living in Michigan at the time), with a semi-official-looking lease and everything. When she got there? No apartment. She didn’t quite mapquest the thing correctly, but this guy supposedly had a record for doing this.
That was a fun phone call to be on the other side when she was stranded with luggage in Chicago on a random summer night.

added by aliciak 03/11/2009

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Always Clean Off Your Hard Drives!

I bought a box of five hard drives from a guy off craigslist several years back, in the hopes of building a couple of computers for my kids and the kids next door. While testing them out, I didn’t just find some porn, I found OVER 60 GB’s of crazy Japanese porn, most of it featuring heavily-tentacled monsters. I’m pretty sure the last of my innocence died that day.

added by JayFerris 03/12/2009

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I Found A Basement Apartment on Craigslist…

…And the rest of the house was full of addicts. The residents were composed of: one alcoholic, a stoner, a coke fiend and two meth heads. Yep. I was quite young and naïve, so I really had no idea until someone pointed it out to me. Then I started to think and…Once, I found a homeless woman searching through our cupboards. Once, I went in the kitchen and all the silverware was gone. Once, a dog pooped in the hallway and no one cleaned it up. And I was being stolen from. Oh Craigslist, thanks for the memories.

added by emme lily 03/12/2009

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